


put your empty hands in mine

by taizi



Series: empty hands [1]
Category: Natsume Yuujinchou | Natsume's Book of Friends
Genre: Abusive Parents, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Childhood Friends, Families of Choice, Foster Care, M/M, Polyamory, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, kitanishinatsu, natsume protection squad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-10
Updated: 2019-03-14
Packaged: 2019-10-07 23:12:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 18,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17374997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taizi/pseuds/taizi
Summary: Kitamoto and Nishimura are soulmates, to absolutely no one's surprise.But they're also soulmates with a very shy boy who lives somewhere far away, who writes to them in tiny, careful letters right before bed, who apologizes when the mimicry of bruises pop up on their arms and backs because of him.And that's a surprise to a lot of people.





	1. circles are hugs

Satoru is laying on his back, legs thrown over Atsushi’s lap, playing Pacman on the Gameboy he stole out of his brother’s room, when he sees the small circle appear on his wrist. 

He blinks at it, distracted long enough that he loses the level, and then tilts his head back to look at Takashi upside down. 

“A hug?” he guesses, and Takashi’s face turns pink. He shoves his marker in his pocket and stubbornly says nothing. 

Atsushi’s eyes shift from the TV down to his own wrist, and he rubs the circle there with his fingers, in the same reverent way he always traces the messages his soulmates leave him. 

“Circles are hugs?” he asks mildly. “Since when?”

“Since Takashi would probably spontaneously combust if he had to ask for cuddles out loud.” 

“I would  _not,”_ Takashi says in token protest, but he comes willingly when Satoru gives a tug on his sleeve. 

He sinks into Satoru’s side with a little smile he does his best to hide, soft and sweet and still so shy, and Satoru loves him  _so much._  

Atsushi says, “Next time just do what Satoru does, and take a running leap at one of us to get our attention.”

“It’s effective,” Satoru says primly, and Takashi laughs a little. 

“No, it’s okay,” he says. “I just like to – make sure it’s okay.”

Satoru and Atsushi share a bewildered look over Takashi’s head, and Atsushi is opening his mouth to ask the obvious question when Atsushi’s mother leans into the room. 

“Takashi-kun, your guardian will be here to pick you up in a few minutes,” she says kindly, house phone in hand, “so make sure you’re ready to go, okay?”

Satoru would have to be  _blind_ to miss the look of misery on Takashi’s face as he sits up, but it’s there and gone again so quickly it could have been a trick of the light. He smiles at Atushi’s mother and thanks her again for her hospitality, even though Atsushi and Satoru have both told him a hundred times that he  _belongs_ wherever they are.

“You know you’re always welcome,” Atsushi’s mother says, driving the point home. Her eyes are knowing and caring and sad as she looks down at him, but she doesn’t seem to know what else to say.

Satoru does.

“I’ve decided I’m gonna kidnap you,” he announces to the room at large. Takashi looks at him with wide eyes, like he isn’t sure if Satoru is joking. Satoru isn’t sure either. “That way I can see you whenever I want, and I won’t have to wait  _ages_ between visits. Acchan can see you, too, I guess.”

“Wow, thanks,” Atsushi says dryly, and then leans in to kiss Takashi on the cheek, because he’s  _smooth_ like that. 

Even Satoru blushes a little, but Takashi flushes red to the roots of his hair. He’s still stammering when his guardian shows up to get him, and it’s kind of adorable. 

But he’s actually smiling as he leaves, waving happily as he walks away, and maybe the good feeling will linger. Maybe he’ll remember it when he gets sad again, when he’s writing to them on his palm late at nightas though there’s no one else he can talk to. Satoru hopes he remembers it. 

And next time they see him, Satoru will work up the courage to kiss him, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this won't be very long ! it's an au i started awhile ago that's been on my mind lately
> 
> title borrowed from [stand by you](https://youtu.be/R4KkBxv0VpY)


	2. priyatno poznakomit'sya

The first time Satoru ever spoke to Takashi was an evening in third grade.

Satoru’s in the kitchen, homework spread across the table, struggling with a multiplication problem in his workbook. Mom’s at work, and Kiyoshi’s locked up in their shared bedroom doing his own studying, and no one’s around to stop Satoru from digging out his favorite felt-tip pen and writing onto his palm.

_74 x 43 ?_

Atsushi probably won’t write back right away-- he’s usually busy helping with his baby sister when he gets home from school-- so Satoru skips the problem and moves onto the next one for now, scowling as he works through the numbers meticulously.

But hardly a minute later, color catches his eye.

_3182_

Small, square numbers drawn in quiet orange ink, handwriting that is absolutely _not_ Atsushi’s, that has no business on Satoru’s skin, unless--

Unless--

He grabs for his pen so fast he almost knocks it off the table and writes as quickly he can, the characters sloppy and overlapping all down the length of his arm:

_ACCHAN_

It’s quicker than a phone call in getting his friend’s attention, but the seconds it takes feels like hours. Satoru stares hungrily at his hand for another hint of that orange, but it doesn’t come. Instead, in the swift, skinny strokes of a ballpoint pen, Atsushi writes back. Satoru knows him and the shape of his hiragana well enough to know what it looks like when he’s writing in a hurry.

 _What’s your name?_ Atsushi asks.

It’s the first of a thousand questions Nishimura can think of. He wants to know who this person is, and where they are, and why they waited so long to speak up. He wants to know how it’s possible that he could belong to two people instead of one person. He wants to know about their orange marker, if that’s their favorite color or if it’s something they had laying around. He wants to know if they’re good at math.

But before any of that, he definitely wants to know their name.

 _Please_ , Atsushi adds, and it might be that more than anything else that does the trick.

Because the orange ink reappears; neat, precise words drawn in slow, careful strokes. It’s silly, but Satoru thinks he can feel Atsushi holding his breath, from clear on the other side of town.

 _Natsume Takashi,_ their missing piece writes out. And then, slowly, as carefully as the first few steps on a tightrope, _It’s nice to meet you._

Satoru doesn’t get any of his homework done. He runs out of room on his hands and his arms, and sits at the table with a pack of disposable wipes nearby to rub a space clean for his next question. Takashi doesn’t have a phone they can call but they have so much to talk about.

_When is your birthday?_

_What shows do you like?_

_What’s your favorite food?_

_What are your hobbies?_

_What makes you happy?_

His answers are as tentative for the rest of the night as they were at the beginning, the shapes his marker makes are shy and uncertain, and Satoru wants to know why he waited so long to talk to them.

 _You don’t write very much,_ comes the reason. _I didn’t want to bother you._

Satoru and Atsushi are in the same class, and together most afternoons outside school, and Satoru would happily live at the Kitamoto house if he could. They don’t often have reason to write to each other, when Satoru could just as soon put on his shoes and run over to Atsushi’s house. Sitting still to write notes isn’t as fun as jumping on your best friend’s bed to wake him up in the morning.

He didn’t know Takashi was taking a cue from them. He didn’t know Takashi was out there at all, or he would have written more.

 _You won’t ever be a bother,_ he writes. _Never ever. Talk to us all the time._

It’s then that Kiyoshi comes downstairs for a drink. He scowls when he sees Satoru’s homework is abandoned and his telltale purple marker is in hand, but before he can start scolding, Satoru has this big news to share.

“Niichan, _look!”_ he says, brandishing his arm and its three sets of handwriting in three different colors. He feels shivery with excitement, like he should be running in circles around the table. It’s unbelievable he’s just been sitting here, mostly quiet, while his whole life got turned around by Takashi. “Look, look!”

Kiyoshi sits beside him, and looks stunned, and then amazed, and then amused. His voice is fond when it comes out.

“You’ve got too much personality to suit just one other soulmate. I guess it makes sense that you’d have two.”

Satoru doesn’t know what _that’s_ supposed to mean, but he likes Kiyoshi’s tone, so he beams.

“It’s _extraordinary!”_ Satoru says, his new favorite word he learned from Tsuji last week. “And he’s so cool. He’s smart and nice and he hates spicy food just like me! Now we can team up against Acchan when he wants us to eat yucky shichimi or something.”

Kiyoshi is smiling at him. Under the edge of his long sleeve T-shirt, Satoru can see a glimpse of writing on his wrist, in that foreign language that Satoru can’t make sense of. Kiyoshi studies a lot, but mom would be angry if she knew that most of the books in his desk are Russian instead of any school material.

Satoru is really lucky that Atsushi and Takashi are both so close to him. He watches words bloom across his arm, Atsushi gently coaxing Takashi into a mostly one-sided debate about anime and Takashi responding gamely but with no idea what they’re talking about, and says, “I wonder why he didn’t talk to us until now. He said he didn't want to bother us, but that can't be it, can it? Why would he even think that in the first place?"

His brother’s smile slips. After a pause, Kiyoshi reaches over and moves the collar of Satoru’s shirt. On his collarbone is an ugly bruise, mottled purple and yellow. Kiyoshi saw it in the bath a few days ago and got upset, but Satoru doesn’t even feel it. He has no idea where it came from. It doesn’t hurt at all.

Kiyoshi’s expression is something Satoru doesn’t understand, and his voice is almost sad when he says, “Don’t ask him that, Satoru. Promise?”

Promises are very serious. Kiyoshi hardly ever asks for one. Satoru doesn’t know what the big deal is, but he knows it is one, so he nods as gravely as he can manage.

“Promise, niichan. I won’t ask. All that matters is that he’s talking to us now. And I’ll talk to him so much that he’ll forget what it was like not to have me around!”

That makes Kiyoshi smile again, and he messes up Satoru’s hair, and sits with him in the kitchen for as long as it takes to finish his homework. Whatever made him sad, he doesn't talk about it. But he does ask Satoru to tell Takashi it's nice to meet him. And because it's a familiar game they play, Satoru says, "How do you say it in Russian?"

"Priyatno poznakomit'sya," Kiyoshi says without missing a beat. "But can you spell it?"

 _My brother is mean and says hi,_ Satoru writes, and laughs when Kiyoshi shoves him. 

Takashi seems surprised that Satoru has a brother. Atsushi jumps in to talk about his sister. When Takashi says, _I wish I had a sibling,_ Satoru thinks it's something someone lonely would wish for. 

He doesn't want to think of Takashi as lonely, but once the thought comes, it stays. 

If Satoru's soulmate is lonely, he's not doing a very good job, is he?

 _You do have siblings, _he writes back, his face set stubbornly.  _You have a big brother and a baby sister. Didn't we just say that?_

 _Mana's not even one yet, and she can throw her dinner clear across the kitchen,_ Atsushi reports cheerfully. 

 _And Kiyoshi's a know-it-all, but he'll help with your homework,_ Satoru adds. 

Takashi doesn't answer back for a long, long time after that. When he does, it's a simple  _thank you_  that appears in the middle of Satoru's palm, written with so much care that Satoru wants to cry.

He closes his fingers and holds onto it instead. He holds on for years and years.


	3. hi, pumpkin

Satoru is restless the entire train ride. He can’t sit still. Atsushi’s a bundle of nerves, too, hands clasped in his lap, knee bouncing. Atsushi's mom has a book open, but her peaceful smile isn’t fooling Satoru for a second.

“Don’t laugh at us, obasan,” he whines. “This train is going so slow! We should have been there by now!”

“Nearly there, Satoru,” she says patiently. “You’ve waited this long, you can wait a little bit longer.”

Satoru slumps against Atsushi, directing his scowl out the window at the scenery flashing by. It’s not fair that they have to wait at _all._

It was months after that first time they wrote each other before Satoru got to hear Takashi’s voice on the phone. Takashi moved to a new house for some reason, and his new guardian had a phone they let him use, and he wrote the phone number in those precise little numbers that appeared like a gift in the middle of Satoru’s palm. He and Atsushi raced each other to the kitchen, hopping in excited circles around Atsushi’s mother, until she laughingly took the cordless down and handed it over.

“You let him know he can always call collect,” she said. “He can call whenever he likes, day or night.”

Kitamoto promised to tell him, and Satoru punched him in the arm until he started dialing, and they waited with baited breath, the phone held up between them, for the line to connect and a soft voice to say, “ _Hello_?”

They talked for ages. They talked forever. They never ran out of things to say. Atsushi’s mom let them be late for dinner, and they talked until Natsume reluctantly told them he had to go, and Satoru was giddy for the rest of the night. He was too giggly to sleep, and Atsushi didn’t even shove a pillow over his face to make him be quiet, because he was giggly, too.

But a few weeks after that, Takashi moved again. And he couldn’t call anymore, and he didn’t even write that often. And Satoru hadn’t known him very long, but he missed him _so much._ Like-- he’d misplayed an eyeball. An absence he felt keenly, every time he looked at the empty skin on his arms and hands.

Did they make him mad? Did they say something he didn’t like? Satoru was called tactless by a lot of people, but Atsushi wouldn’t have let him hurt Takashi’s feelings. So why didn’t Takashi like them anymore?

Atsushi was sad, too, but he wrote into the emptiness anyway. Little notes and happy things that didn’t need an answer. Remarks about stuff that happened at school or what Mana was up to or what silly thing Satoru did that made their classmates all laugh.

He wrote and wrote, like it really mattered that he did. Like he’d write about silly stuff forever, even if he never got an answer. And sometimes in between words, a bruise would appear, too.

Satoru would rub the bruises with his fingers. When they didn’t hurt, he began to realize they weren’t his. And when he realized that, he picked up his favorite purple marker, and he started writing into the emptiness, too.

 _I miss the color you always write in_. _It makes me think of pumpkins. I hope I can see it again soon._

It was whole days of that, until Atsushi wrote for Satoru to come over right away, and Satoru ran all the way to Atsushi’s house without even asking why because he didn’t _need_ to ask why. He burst in to find Atsushi holding the phone in one hand and reaching for Satoru with the other. There were tears in his eyes, even though Atsushi never cried, but he was smiling too.

And Satoru lunged the rest of the way between them, and seized the phone, and yelled into the receiver, “Takashi! Don’t you ever do that again! You scared me to death! I can’t believe you!”

 _“Sorry, Satoru,”_ came the voice he missed so much, soft and sweet, a little bit sad. _“I missed you, too.”_

He never said why he stopped talking for so many days, and Satoru never asked. Not because he wasn’t curious, but because he made a promise to Kiyoshi not to ask those questions. And because there were bruises on his arms that weren’t his, and he was starting to figure out what that meant.

 _“Thank you for keeping me company,”_ Takashi went on. “ _I’m sorry I didn’t answer.”_

“Quit it,” Atsushi said. “I already told you not to say sorry. We’re not going anywhere, you’re stuck with us. And mom wants to talk to your guardian, so put them on the phone.”

“But make sure they give the phone back to you when obasan’s done so I can say goodnight!” Satoru added petulantly.

And Atsushi’s mom handed baby Mana off to Atsushi’s dad, and took the phone with hard, bright eyes and a smile that looked like it was more suited to a shark or a wolf than a lady as nice as her. She shooed them out of the kitchen, and had a long conversation with whoever Takashi was living with, and brought the phone back to them so they could trade goodnights. Then she told Satoru he might as well sleep over since he was here already, and that she’d call his mom to let her know.

“And in the morning,” Atsushi’s mom said, the voice of a mom who was about to go to war, “the three of us are taking a trip.”

So here they are, on the longest train ride ever, on a school day because it’s a special occasion. Obasan bought them lunch boxes but Satoru can’t even finish his. His excitement is turning into nerves, twisting and grinding in his stomach, and he doesn’t realize he’s twisting his fingers until Atsushi reaches over to uncurl his hands and hold them.

“What if he doesn’t like me?” Satoru whispers.

“He already likes you,” Atsushi tells him, like there’s no doubt. “And even if he didn’t, I like you. Now eat your lunch. I’ll make fun of you if you faint at Takashi’s house.”

It’s stupid, but it makes him feel better. Atsushi’s mom is smiling again as she turns a page in her book. The rest of the train ride doesn’t seem as impossibly long with Atsushi holding his hand. When they reach the station, whatever weird excited-nervous thing he’s feeling has ballooned into something bright and buoyant, and he all but pulls Atsushi onto the platform with him.

“They said they’d be waiting at the station,” Atsushi’s mom reminds them before they can dart ahead too far. She’s looking over their heads at the people in the crowd, so Satoru and Atsushi look around, too, and on a whim, Satoru looks down at his hands for a clue.

On the back of the hand still holding Atsushi’s, orange writing appears. It says _hello._

Satoru jerks his head up, so fast it hurts. There aren’t a lot of people on the platform, and suddenly there’s no one in his way, and right in front of him, standing by the station doors, is Takashi. He’s all by himself, and his smile is uncertain and shy, and he’s still holding that orange marker to his hand.

When they asked what he looked like, Takashi said he had pale hair and brown eyes, but he didn’t say how much like gold he looked in the bright afternoon sun. He _shines._

Satoru is running for him before he makes a decision to move, and Atsushi is running with him. Takashi’s arms are curled up by his chest like he doesn’t know what to do with them but his soulmates plow into him anyway, wrap him up, squeeze him so hard he couldn’t wriggle free if he tried.

“Hi, pumpkin!” Satoru says, so happy he could burst into a thousand pieces. Atsushi smothers a smile in the top of Takashi’s head, and Takashi makes a noise that sounds like pain.

But before Satoru can worry that they hurt him or scared him, jumping on him like crazy people the first time they ever met, Takashi’s hand hooks into the front of Satoru’s jacket and he whispers, “Hi.”


	4. a happy picture

“Um, this is where I live,” Takashi says, pushing open the front door and standing back to let them all file in. “No one else is here today.”

Satoru looks at Atsushi’s mom, who looks really angry for a moment. But she doesn’t look angry at Takashi or Atsushi or Satoru himself, so Satoru doesn’t really care who her temper is for. Whoever it is, they probably deserve it.

Toeing out of his sneakers in the genkan, Satoru looks around curiously. It’s a really normal-looking place, smaller than the Kitamoto’s house but more tidy, probably because these people don’t have an energetic one-year-old to deal with.

At Satoru’s house, there’s evidence of him and Kiyoshi in their best graded papers hanging on the fridge, and photos of their gap-toothed smiles on the walls, and the games and toys that don’t quite make it back to their bedroom when it’s time to clean up at the end of the day.

There’s no evidence of Takashi here, in the framed certificates and expensive-looking decorations. Even the potted plant in the hallway looks like it would cost money to touch. Satoru has his hands buried deep in his pockets, like when he visits his grandma’s house, just in case.

“Well, I need to make a phone call,” obasan says brightly, pushing that angry look off her face so that her smile for Takashi is a nice one. “Why don’t you show the boys your room, Takashi? I’ll be there in a little bit.”

Takashi is nervous, which is silly, and makes Satoru feel silly for being nervous on the train here. He takes one of Takashi’s hands, and Atsushi takes the other, and that makes the stairs a little tricky to navigate but it also makes Takashi giggle every time they trip.

“I sleep in here,” Takashi says, guiding them through an open door at the end of the hall. “It’s actually their daughter’s room, but she goes to a private school in another town now.”

It’s a nice-sized room, with a desk and a dresser and an empty place for a futon in the corner. It’s as pleasant and impersonal as the hotel room Satoru remembers staying in once. If someone asked him to guess who lived here, Satoru would never in his life guess it was another eight-year-old boy.

“Where’s your stuff?” Atsushi says, sounding as puzzled as Satoru feels.

Takashi brightens a little more. “You want to see?”

Satoru doesn’t know what to say when Takashi’s stuff turns out to be all packed away in the cardboard box he pulls out of the closet. There are books and toys inside, all worn and weathered and clearly loved, and Satoru scoots closer eagerly to pick up a stuffed lion that falls out when Takashi lifts out a book.

There’s only velvet softness where a fluffy mane probably used to be, and its dull yellow color is faded from something brighter. It must be a favorite, but then why is it living in a box?

“That’s Roar,” Takashi mumbles, when Satoru holds it out to him. His face is a little pink, but he still tucks the lion back in the box with unending care. “I’ve had him forever.”

“Acchan has a stuffed sheep that’s missing an eye from when I dropped it out the car window when we were five,” Satoru says, waving the other boy’s embarrassment away. “Her name is Bell and he likes her more than me sometimes.”

“All the time,” Atsushi grumbles, shoving him without much force.

Takashi giggles again, and turns his attention to the book. It’s too big for him to hold up comfortably, so he lets it fall open in his lap, glossy pages parting around an old photograph bookmarked somewhere near the middle. Satoru leans in to see better.

There are two people in the photograph, both of them smiling like their faces were built for it and standing close to each other. Takashi looks like them, Satoru thinks. And then he realizes who he’s looking at.

“Your parents?” he asks. Takashi nods.

“I didn’t know my mom, but papa was really nice! I think he would have liked you.”

“Are they gone?” Atsushi asks next. “Is that why you’re living here?”

“Mm.” Takashi takes the photo back, and the smile he’s wearing is a little wobbly now. “I tried to go home once, but I couldn’t make it. And even if I did, papa wouldn’t be there anymore. The picture-- it’s my favorite thing, but it makes me sad. So I put it away.”

Satoru scoots over until their shoulders bump, and lays his head on Takashi’s shoulder. It’s how he sits with Atsushi when Atsushi is sad. He says, “My dad is gone, too. Him and mom got divorced when I was really little, and that’s why we moved to Hitoyoshi, where we live now. I met Acchan in kindergarten, and I was never lonely, but I think mom and niichan were. They put away all of dad’s stuff. Even stuff they really liked. I think it makes sense that the picture makes you sad, because you loved your papa a lot, and it’s reminding you he’s not here anymore.”

Takashi’s hand tightens around the photo. He says, “But I want to remember him without being sad.”

Satoru wants that, too. He presses his lips together against the sympathetic tears in his eyes and darts a look at Atsushi. Atsushi looks helplessly out of his depth, because he’s never lost anyone he shouldn’t have; his parents are where they’re supposed to be and his house is happy and warm. But he’s still Atsushi, and he still has a solution.

“Mom has a camera,” he says, standing up. He reaches down to offer both his hands. “She brings it with her any time we go somewhere special. Let’s take another picture for you to keep with this one.”

“A happy picture!” Satoru exclaims, latching onto the idea as he grabs Atsushi’s hand. “For you to look at when you start to get sad!”

Takashi takes Atsushi’s hand, too, and lets the taller boy haul him to his feet. He looks down at the photo, creased and weathered from a hundred other moments just like this one. When he looks up again, he looks the way he did when Satoru first saw him, sweet and hopeful and full of sunlight.

“Do you think it would work?” he asks.

“There’s only one way to find out,” Atsushi says in his most determined voice, and leads the charge back downstairs.

Atsushi’s mom has a complicated look on her face when they show her Takashi’s picture and detail their plan. Her eyes get wet, but she’s smiling again before Satoru has a chance to feel alarmed by that. She reaches into her purse for the shiny camera Atsushi is very rarely allowed to play with and hands it right over.

They take what feels like a million pictures for the rest of the day. Some of them are clumsy and sideways and motion-blurred, but those are the best ones. Atsushi reaching for the camera with an annoyed expression, Satoru making a silly face, Takashi caught in a surprised laugh.

Satoru’s favorite is the one he cajoles Atsushi’s mom to take for them, of the three of them clustered together, cheek-to-cheek and beaming.

That one’s Takashi’s favorite, too. Atsushi’s mom takes them out to dinner, and then to a store where a smiling clerk asks them which pictures they’d like printed out, and Takashi picks it out right away.

And when the book goes back into the box, and the box gets packed away in the closet, and the whole bedroom goes back to looking like Takashi doesn’t live there at all, Atsushi’s mom helps him put the double picture frame on the desk. It opens and closes like a book, and sits upright on its own without a stand.

On one side is the photo of Takashi’s parents. On the other, bright and brand new, is the picture they took today; the one of three faces grinning so wide that it makes Satoru grin just looking at it.

When he sneaks a peek at Takashi, Satoru is relieved to see him smiling at it, too.


	5. something unbelievable

Leaving him is hard, hard, hard. It feels like Satoru’s trying to leave behind one of his lungs, or half of his heart.

They hug one last time at the station, and Takashi’s fingers dig into the back of Satoru’s shirt-- he’s too shy to make demands, but that desperate grip is enough of one, and Satoru wishes for the one millionth time that they could just take Takashi with them. He thinks Takashi wishes it, too.

“It’s time to go, boys,” auntie says in a gentle voice. But she has a hug ready for Takashi despite herself, squeezing him tight and close with a hand against his hair. “It was wonderful to meet you, Takashi. We’ll see you again soon. Do you still have the present I gave you?”

He nods without pulling away, face buried in her stomach.

“I told your guardians that it’s yours, to keep with you all the time,” she says. “I told them I would be calling to check on you every week. I want you to keep it with you even at school, and make sure you keep the battery charged. You can send as many emails and make as many calls as you’d like, but keep it charged. Can you do all that for me, sweetheart?”

At first Satoru was a little jealous that auntie bought Takashi one of those cool prepaid flip phones when Atsushi’s been asking for one for _ages,_ but he thinks he gets it now. It’s another way she’s taking care of them.

Takashi looks up at her like he’s never seen anyone like her before, which is just more proof. He always looks like that when someone does something nice for him.

Satoru and Atsushi steal another hug, because the risk of missing their train is more than worth it, then auntie ushers them both on board. The doors hiss closed and Satoru wastes no time in clambering onto his seat and plastering himself to the window.

Takashi stands there looking small and unhappy, almost swallowed up by the bustling crowd, hands clutched in the front of his own shirt like he’s afraid his heart might jump out to follow his soulmates home.

But he smiles when he sees Satoru looking. He lifts a hand as the train starts to move, and Satoru loses sight of him almost immediately.

Not everyone loves their other halves. Sometimes they don’t even seem to get along. Tsuji and his soulmate bicker every single day of their lives, like it’s a competition to see who can get the most hits in, but--

Tsuji gets upset when one of his classmates calls the other boy mean. “He’s not,” Tsuji will say, frustrated and a little bit hurt by their complete misunderstanding. “He’s my best friend. I’m going to marry him _forever_ when we get older and argue with him about _everything._ ”

Satoru’s only eight, and he’s never _once_ thought about getting married, but he’s familiar with love. He loves his brother, and his auntie, and his two best friends, so much it sometimes feels like a balloon inflating in his chest to the point of pain. He loves mom most of the time, and uncle Hakaru and little baby Mana, and Tsuji and Taki and Sasada. He’s never been without love, not really. Neither has Atsushi.

Takashi has.

Takashi doesn’t have parents or a house or even a bedroom that’s his. He moves around a lot, and lives with people that don’t seem to want him, and it takes an effort to get him talking, as though he’s used to being hushed or ignored. He wanted Satoru and Atsushi to stay and had no idea how to ask.

Satoru’s second soulmate is like a ghost with good intentions. One that wants to stick around but knows better than to break the rules. One that watches them leave like he’s used to watching people leave.

It’s hard. It hurts. It feels like they’re not _supposed_ to be so far apart. But it’s not goodbye, Satoru reminds himself, repeating in his head what auntie had reminded them over and over. It’s never ever going to be goodbye.

And now he has a phone of his very own! And he promised to call when they got home tonight!

Atsushi already has his felt-tip pen out, writing onto the back of his hand, _Miss you already._

Satoru grabs for it when he’s done and scrawls his own, much messier, _Talk to you soon!_

The phone comes more in handy than Satoru ever thought it would.

Auntie is strict about calling, never missing a single agreed-upon check-in, and that’s on top of all the countless hours Atsushi and Satoru spend talking to him after school and on lazy Sunday afternoons. Kiyoshi checks his arms and his back for new bruises during baths and looks relieved when there’s nothing but the fading yellows and greens of old ones.

Sometimes Atsushi gives the phone to baby Mana and lets her babble solemnly into the reciever. Sometimes they put it on speaker and pour over homework together and try to lure Tsuji or Sasada over to correct their bumbling attempts at English.

Slowly, during all those endless days, Takashi’s voice gets brighter and louder. He picks up on the first or second ring with a happy, “Hi!” that makes Satoru want to roll around and smile at everything.

And then one day, a stranger answers the phone.

 _“So you do exist!”_ an unfamiliar voice says by way of greeting.

“Who’s this?” Atsushi asks, confused. After nearly a year, no one’s ever answered Takashi’s phone for him before. Satoru crawls closer and presses his ear to the phone, too, in time to hear a group of kids share a laugh in the background.

 _“My name’s Shibata. Natsume’s in my class,”_ the boy with Takashi’s phone says. _“Me and my friends wanted to know what kind of person his soulmate was, that’s all.”_

 _“Stop it!”_ Takashi cries from somewhere behind him. The distress in his voice makes Satoru’s hands bunch into fists all on their own. _“Give it back!”_

“What’s your problem?” Satoru snaps. “Give his phone back or you’ll be sorry!”

 _“Hey, I’m not hurting anything,”_ Shibata says. Now he sounds a little surprised, like he wasn’t expecting their anger. _“I’ll give it back. We just wanted proof he wasn’t lying about you like he lies about everything else.”_

“He doesn’t have to prove anything to you.” Atsushi’s never glared like this before at _anybody,_ and Satoru wishes these bullies could see it. “You just told me your name like an _idiot_ , and my mom will call the school and get you in trouble if you mess with him anymore. Give him back the phone and go away.”

There’s a brief pause, and then a quiet shuffle, and then Shibata’s voice in the distance leading his stupid pack of friends away. There’s soft, shuddering breaths on the line next, and Satoru says, “It’s okay, pumpkin. Let’s go someplace you like to be, okay? Is there anyplace like that around?”

 _“There’s a-- an abandoned shrine,”_ Takashi whispers, and he’s _crying,_ and Satoru feels his eyes burn with sympathetic tears almost immediately. _“That I like to go to sometimes. I’ll go there.”_

As he walks, they keep him company. They talk about stuff that doesn’t really matter, just to fill up the silence. Atsushi taps his fingers on his knee to count Takashi’s breaths until they start to slow down.

Then they hear a low creak of wood, and the distinct groan of an old door easing open on tired hinges, and Takashi murmurs, _“I’m here.”_

“Are you okay?” Satoru presses. “Do those guys bother you a lot?”

_“Not really. They just say stuff. This is the first time they took my bag.”_

Atsushi’s still got that scary look on his face. Satoru half wants to take a picture because no one will ever believe him that _his_ Acchan could look like _that._ He definitely gets it from auntie, Uncle Hakaru is too nice. Hopefully Mana takes after her dad.

“I should still tell mom. She’ll come all the way to your school if your guardian won’t.”

“And we could come with her and visit!” Satoru adds brightly, always an opportunist.

It works in earning them a little laugh. _“I probably won’t live here for very much longer. I don’t want to start any trouble.”_

Satoru pouts, but Atsushi’s tapping his fingers again. He looks troubled by something.

“Takashi, what did he mean?” he asks carefully. “When he said you lied?”

 _"I can't tell you,"_  comes the quiet reply, hurt and heartfelt. _"You won't believe me either."_

"Nope, we definitely would," Satoru says right away. "If anybody'd believe you, it'd be me and Acchan. Right, Acchan?"

"Right. We know you're not a liar, but it's just like I told that guy, Shibata. You don't have to prove anything, okay? You can keep all the secrets you want, and we'll help you keep them."

"And when we come visit, I'm gonna beat up Shibata!" Satoru adds. He waves a fist for emphasis. "Teach him to mess with  _my_ Takashi."

" _Our_ Takashi," Atsushi corrects, giving him a not very gentle push. 

 _"You'd believe me no matter what?"_ Takashi asks cautiously. There's hope in his voice, this tentative burdened hope. They've never given him any reason to doubt them, but it's still so hard.  _"Even if it was something unbelievable?"_

"Takashi, you're-- a part of us. We love you. We're not gonna stop coming to visit or writing notes to you during class or calling you all the time, no matter what you tell us."

 _"Even if,"_ he whispers, shaky, _"even if I told you I could see ghosts?"_

Which-- huh.

That doesn't sound as crazy as Satoru was bracing himself for.

Maybe things are different in the city, but everyone in Satoru's quiet country hometown is pretty superstitious. Even mom won't hang out any laundry to dry at night, and the only time Tsuji was ever late to class was when his shoelace broke on his way out the door and his mother made him change it.

And maybe there's a right way to respond to this big secret of Takashi's that he's revealed-- a better, more mature, thoughtful way than Satoru jumping up and down and smacking Atsushi on the arm, forgetting himself in his sudden excitement.

"Hey, so did Yula! Remember?"

Atsushi still looks a little thrown, but he nods along. "Your brother’s soulmate? Oh--  _oh yeah!"_

"Her last apartment was super haunted," Satoru says into the phone, bringing Takashi back up to speed. "Apparently there are lots of ghosts in St. Petersburg. She and her moms moved to a new apartment, though, and she hasn't seen anything creepy in ages."

"Isn't there a priest here in town who does cleansings? Over at Yatsuhara Temple?" Atsushi asks, more to himself than Satoru, who they both know has no clue what priests are here in town. "I'm pretty sure one of our neighbors called him in to place ofuda in the house because her grandma kept getting sick. They must've thought it was a spirit."

"If Takashi sees them all the time, it must be scary. You should get an omamori to carry with you, just in case," Satoru insists, leaning in to monopolize the phone again. "Next time you visit, we'll go to Yatsuhara and get you a good one, okay? Promise."

It sounds like Takashi is crying again, muffled like he took the phone away and buried his face in his hands. It takes forever to coax him back out, and Satoru is worried they said something wrong until he realizes the tears are mixed with laughter, and it's not an unhappy sound at all. 

 _"Okay, Satchan,"_  Takashi says, each word shaped like a smile. _"It's a promise."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> they're a little older here than they were when natsume and shibata were classmates in canon, but i had to include my walking trash fire of a son somewhere


	6. the lucky cat

“Ugh, _Takashi,”_ Satoru says with distaste. “I can’t believe you’re friends with _Shibata.”_

Takashi gives him a guilty smile, but finishes tapping out a reply to his new email anyway. While he’s distracted, Atsushi shoots Satoru a warning look over the top of his head, and Satoru rolls his eyes.

“I’m just _saying._ I was gonna beat him up for being a jerk, and I can’t do that if Takashi’s friends with him.”

“He’s not so bad,” Takashi says in his soft, insistent way. “He apologized for taking my phone, and he makes the other kids leave me alone. School is a lot more fun now.”

Satoru can feel himself relenting, because Takashi’s eyes are so big and brown that it’s impossible not to melt under them, and that’s _annoying_. He crosses his arms and sulks at the river, and sulks a little harder when Atsushi says, “Ignore him, he’s being an idiot. I’m glad you have a new friend, Okashi.”

Takashi still turns a little pink when they call him by a nickname, but that’s ninety percent of the reason why they do. He puts his phone away and lifts his bare feet up out of the water, crossing his legs and leaning over until he’s comfortably slumped against Satoru’s side.

Then he pulls out that orange marker of his, the cap squeaking as it’s twisted off. Satoru can’t resist looking down at his own hands as Takashi’s familiar handwriting appears on the inside of his left wrist.

Satoru watches the characters form, and sounds them out in his head as they do; _su-ki da yo._

“ _Ughhhh_ ,” Satoru says again, with even more feeling this time. He throws his arms around Takashi and topples them over sideways, squeezing him hard and rolling him into the muddy bank, mostly so he won’t notice how red Satoru’s face probably is. “That’s so cute! It’s annoying!”

Takashi’s alarmed yelp morphs into helpless laughter as he struggles to get free. Atsushi scoots aside to avoid their tangle of limbs and doesn’t lift a finger to help him.

It’s the best summer they’ve ever had, because Takashi is visiting for a whole month before the next school term. He got to meet all of Atsushi and Satoru’s friends, and they all liked him immediately-- even grumpy Adachi, who doesn’t really like anyone that's not Tsuji. They’ve spent countless hours playing tag in the tall grass, and begging cool treats from storekeepers, and filling their pockets with bugs and crushed flowers and little frogs to bring home to Mana.

Takashi brightens with every afternoon he spends in the countryside under the beaming sun, until his skin is a gold that matches his eyes, and his grin is waiting just around every corner. Satoru wants to keep him here forever, until he forgets what it was like to be shadowed and sad.

“Mom’s gonna be mad at you,” Atsushi says dryly, when they’ve run out of energy to wrestle anymore. “She already did the laundry today.”

“We can just hop in the river and get all the dirt off,” Satoru retorts. “It’s so hot today we’ll be dry again before dinner.”

Beside him, Takashi suddenly goes still. He sits up quickly, all the playful vibrance gone out of him to make room for something tense and alert, like a rabbit that senses a hawk in the sky. Satoru follows his eyes, but there’s nothing to look at; just a stretch of riverbank they have all to themselves, and an empty bridge over the water.

But still--

“Something’s there?” Atsushi asks. He’s already getting to his feet, reaching down with both hands to pull Satoru and Takashi up, too. “Where is it?”

“On the other side,” Takashi says quietly. He’s staring at the opposite bank. “I don’t think it wants to cross the river. If we hurry we can get away.”

Satoru will never understand how people see Takashi like this and still call him a liar. He’s _looking_ at something-- his eyes are moving inch by inch to follow it, wherever it’s going. There isn’t anything faked or forced about it. Atsushi is still holding their hands as they pull away from their comfy spot by the water, and Takashi points them in the direction of a little footpath that wings toward the treeline.

“There’s a shrine up there,” he says. Somehow he knows better than Satoru does where all the shrines are, and Satoru’s the one who lives here. “We’ll be safe at a shrine.”

The first time something followed him, he told Satoru and Atsushi to go home without him. They scolded him so much for even _thinking_ they’d leave him to deal with a mean ghost by himself that he never brought it up again. He just holds their hands tight and pulls them along, as quick as he can without tripping them up, dodging low-hanging branches and jumping over protruding roots.

They spill out of the trees and onto a wider path, and nearly bowl Tsuji and Adachi right over.

“What in the fresh hell are you doing?” Adachi snaps, shuffling to hide the fact that he’s holding Tsuji’s hand. Any other time, Satoru would be _delighted._ “Natsume, don’t let them drag you around.”

“Everything okay?” Tsuji asks, as unflappable as ever. He’s frowning a little bit. “Are you running from someone?”

“No,” the three of them chorus, which is probably the most suspicious thing ever. Tsuji, class president and resident mom friend, narrows his eyes at them. “We’re just showing Takashi around,” Atsushi adds more convincingly.

A branch snaps somewhere behind them, and Takashi jerks an involuntary step in the opposite direction, yanking his soulmates with him.

“Anyway, seeya,” Satoru says by way of farewell, and the three of them take off again before their friends can get a word in edgewise, tearing up a slight incline and diving into the cover of some heavy brush. “Jeez, the _one time_ there are other people walking around in the woods-- why would you walk around in the woods? Weirdos!”

Atsushi laughs breathlessly. “We hang out here every day!”

Their meandering route finally leads them across the shrine stairs. They head up, bare feet tapping the sun-warmed stone, the red torii gate looming in welcome just a few meters ahead.

Looks like we made it, Satoru thinks victoriously--

And then wind roars behind them, like a hunting creature. Takashi makes a strangled sound and pulls them to the left sharply. Satoru’s foot catches on something around ankle-height and he goes sprawling with a startled squawk, and he drags Atsushi right down with him. Takashi manages to stay upright because Atsushi does the sensible thing and lets go of his hand, but his face is pale.

“Um,” he says, sinking to his knees gingerly. “Do either of you know what this was for?”

Satoru picks himself up with a groan to get a look at what Takashi’s talking about. The fair-haired boy is holding two ends of a snapped straw rope-- probably the thing Satoru tripped on. Its little paper streamers are crushed and dirty, now.

“It’s a shimenawa,” he goes on, looking at the two of them beseechingly. “It’s-- like a ward? Or a barrier? Do you know if-- it was here for an important reason?”

“You broke it,” a gruff voice behind them says. All three of them flinch wildly, and Satoru and Atsushi both spin around, ready to plead their case to whatever old man happened upon the scene, because it was an _accident!_

But there isn’t an old man. There’s just a little wooden shrine, with more of the paper shide streamers hanging across the door. Satoru blinks, and looks around for whoever spoke. Atsushi crawls over to where Takashi is kneeling and says, “What is it?”

He grabs for the hand Atsushi offers him. He looks terrified. The doors of the shrine are rattling now, as if there’s something inside trying to burst out. Satoru looks down at the broken rope on the ground, thinks of what Takashi said about a barrier, and has a realization that comes in the form of a succinct, internal, _oh no._

The doors burst open.

There’s a lucky cat statue inside.

They sit there frozen for a moment, staring at the innocuous porcelain figurine. It stares right back, with its waving paw and painted smile. It’s so anticlimactic that Satoru lets out a huff of laughter, and Atsushi’s tense shoulders slump in relief, and Takashi says, “Well, thank goodness for-- “

The shrine _explodes._

Wood bends and snaps, a plume of stirred dirt rising like a cloud, and the three of them duck closer together to keep it out of their eyes. Satoru squints from behind his hand, though, watching the round figure of the calico cat come to life.

It lands next to the splintered remains of its home and squints at them with its dark, slitted eyes.

“You’re not going to cower at the sight of me?” it asks, in the old man voice from earlier.

“You’re not very scary?” Takashi replies. It comes out sounding like a question. He’s probably used to spirits that are scary. The cat huffs, like it’s amused.

“Little brat,” it says, not entirely unkindly. It waddles a few steps forward to give Takashi a sniff. Atsushi is tense, clutching Takashi’s arm with both hands, but Satoru isn’t sure what he’s so freaked out for. It’s a fat old cat-- if it tried anything, they could just throw a rock at it or something to make it go away. “You smell like another human I know. You look like her, too, but she was bigger than you are. Nowhere near as runty.”

“He’s not _runty,_ ” Satoru says, offended. “We’re _ten,_ this is as tall as we get!”

The cat gives him a once-over. “You’re the brat that broke the barrier. Well done.”

“It wasn’t on _purpose_. And if I’d known what you were like beforehand, I’d have hopped over that old rope and left you stuck in there.”

Atsushi is making a sound like he’s dying, but Satoru ignores him. He’s not going to be polite to anyone who decides to be mean to one of his two favorite people in the world, and he doesn’t care if they’re humans or one of Takashi’s yokai.

The cat doesn’t look too bothered, anyway. It seems like it would take a lot to impress it one way or the other. And then Takashi is leaping ahead of the conversation to say, “What human do I look like, maneki-neko-san? Who was she?” so Atsushi doesn’t get a chance to call Satoru an idiot, which means Satoru won that round.

“Her name was Natsume Reiko,” the cat tells him. There’s something odd about the way it’s looking at Takashi, as though it’s sizing him up for something, or making some kind of decision about him. “She must have been a relative of yours.”

“I think that was my grandmother’s name. I’ve heard some of my relatives talk about her,” Takashi says slowly. “They don’t say nice things. Was she-- like me?”

“She was. She could see ayakashi, and she was always alone.”

“That’s not like Okashi, then,” Atsushi interjects abruptly, apparently having kept quiet for as long as possible. “He’s got lots of friends.”

“We knew he could see ghosts before we even met you,” Satoru says. He doesn’t add “so there” even though he wants to. “That’s why we were running through here like crazy in the first place.”

The cat blinks once, twice, unhurried. It says, “Something chased you here?”

“Yes,” Takashi says. “It was-- big. It had long, tangled hair and one eye in the middle of its face. There was a smaller yokai with it, with, um-- sort of wide, feathered ears? Like a dog’s?”

“Do things chase you very often?”

“Yes, ever since I was small. That’s why I was going to the shrine. They don’t bother me there.”

Atsushi’s hands squeeze where they’re holding him, and Satoru leans into his back a little more. They can’t be there with him all the time, as much as they’d like to be. He lives so far away from them that he has to handle the scariest things all by himself. All they can do is comfort him after the fact, try to cheer him up when he gets quiet and sad, write reminders to him in colorful ink that no matter what, he’s never really alone.

And that’s nice and all, but when a monster chases you home from school and looms over your bed at night and whispers your name from every corner of the house, it’s not much.

“Hmph,” says the cat, and then it crawls right into Takashi’s lap.

Takashi gasps, perfectly stunned, and Satoru can’t say he expected this turn of events either.

“Um,” Atsushi hedges. “Maneki-neko-san--”

“Come up with a better name for me than _that,_ brats,” it grizzles. “That’s a mouthful, and it’s none too creative. Your heads must be full of cotton.”

While Satoru is offended and Atsushi is getting that way, Takashi looks somewhere between hopeful and delighted. “A name?” he asks, lowering his hands slowly to the calico fur. “Are you going to stay with me?”

“That’s right,” says the grouchy cat. “Not because I _want_ to-- I have better things to do-- but I owe your grandmother a favor. She’d curse me from the afterlife if she knew I let her little descendant get into trouble on his own.”

“This thing reminds me of Adachi,” Satoru mutters. It’s not a compliment, and Atsushi turns away to muffle a snort behind his hand. “So you’re gonna look after him, is that what you’re saying? Why don’t you just _say_ that?”

The cat glares at him. Satoru has never been less impressed by a glare in his life. Takashi bites his lip, looking worried. “Um, I don’t think my guardians would let you stay, neko-san. They don’t-- they’re not-- “

“They don’t have to _let_ me do anything.” It folds up its paws and puts its chin on Takashi’s knee, every bit as though it’s settling in for a nap right then and there. “I can make myself invisible to most humans, you know. It’s only in this form of mine that your little friends can see me.”

“Lucky us,” Satoru mutters.

“ _Satchan_ ,” Atsushi laughs helplessly.

But Takashi is enamored. He likes cats, Satoru remembers. He sends them pictures of the strays he feeds at the park.

He’s kneeling there in the dirt, damp and muddy from an afternoon spent by the river, barefoot because they didn’t remember to pick up their shoes before they went running off, his arms full of a fat talking cat that they accidentally broke out of a warded shrine, and none of these things seem particularly strange to him.

If anything, he looks happy.

“Can I call you Nyanko-sensei?” he asks eagerly, which is exactly the sort of adorable thing Satoru should have anticipated he would say.

The cat grumbles a lot, but it doesn’t look displeased, and it’s _exactly_ like when Adachi rolls his eyes at Tsuji, who literally everyone knows is Adachi’s best friend. Takashi scoops it up when he climbs to his feet, and turns to throw a beaming smile at his soulmates, hugging his new cat to his chest in both arms.

“Wait till I tell Shibata!” he says brightly.

“ _Ugh_ ,” Satoru replies, remembering to be annoyed about that.

But he has to admit, even if he’ll never say it out loud, that it’s nice knowing Takashi’s got some people looking out for him when Satoru and Atsushi can’t. Even if one of those people is an annoying reformed bully, and the other is an annoying talking cat. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here i am posting fic at 4am like a madman
> 
> "okashi" means a candy or confection, not to be confused with "okashii" which means weird (when they're older kitamoto will probably call natsume by both interchangeably, but it will be affectionate no matter how you slice it because kita is smitten with these 2, lemme tell ya)


	7. hold tight, we're in for nasty weather

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i dont know if i need to add a warning here considering the tags for this fic being what they are but better safe than sorry !
> 
> tw for severe injury of a child in this chapter

With Nyanko-sensei around to keep an eye on things, Takashi’s life quiets down. Comparatively, anyway.

 _Nyanko-sensei can fly!_ Satoru finds on his palm on a school morning, the familiar orange letters rushed and excited. _We went up so high I could see the whole city!_

 _How did that little cat carry you?_ Atsushi asks before Satoru can reach for his pen and demand to know why he didn’t take _them_ flying. 

 _His true form is big,_ Takashi writes. _Really big._

Tsuji is giving them a dirty look for writing notes during social studies, but he has no idea how interesting talking to Takashi is. Satoru pretends not to notice Tsuji’s pointed look at his workbook and instead scrawls a quick, _How big?_

 _Draw him!_ Atsushi adds.

Takashi must be in class, too, because the drawing comes along in bits at a time like he’s trying to avoid getting caught. Satoru’s elbow is propped up on his desk, chin tucked into his hand, so it’s easy to smother the grin on his face that grows a little more with each glance he takes at his arm. Across the room, Atsushi’s mouth wobbles as he tries to keep a straight face.

Takashi is no artist. The creature that painstakingly appears is something between a dog and a woolly sheep, with lots of curly fur and a long wispy tail. It has whiskers and a weird mark on its forehead.

Satoru is tracing this onto his notebook and keeping it forever.

The next time Takashi comes to Hitoyoshi, Shibata is with him. It’s been most of a year since that ill-advised phone call, and by now they’re comfortably joined at the hip. Satoru is jealous Shibata and Takashi are so close, but he’s not going to begrudge his shy soulmate any little scrap of happiness he can find. It’s good he has a friend back home.

And Shibata’s alright, he supposes grudgingly. Nyanko-sensei must approve of him if he’s still around.

“Shibata’s soulmate is someone named Tanuma Kaname,” Takashi says. Satoru and Atsushi are visiting him, this time, and they’re all sitting in Shibata’s kitchen while his mom makes lunch and cheerfully eavesdrops on their conversation. “Do you know anyone by that name?”

“There’s no Tanuma in our class,” Satoru says. He glances at Shibata’s arms, and the writing that peeks out from under his rolled-up sleeves. He feels the last bit of dislike fade away when Shibata rubs his soulmate’s handwriting with a careful finger, like he’s not even aware he’s doing it. “We can ask around when we get home, though.”

“Would you?” Takashi asks brightly. “Thanks, Satchan!”

While Satoru is trying to work a flush off his face, Atsushi asks Shibata, “Have you met him before?”

“We talk on the phone sometimes,” Shibata says slowly.

There’s something kind of vulnerable about him now. It _is_ sort of a personal thing to talk about, and that’s probably why his mom is listening closely, ready to jump in if the conversation takes an uncomfortable turn. But Shibata glances at Takashi, like he’s borrowing extra nerve, and Takashi’s smile seems to settle him.

“Kaname’s really sick, is all,” he tells them. “He’s not up for traveling around, and he has-- “

He glances back at his mother for help. She reminds him gently, “An anxiety disorder.”

“Right,” Shibata says. “He has anxiety, and sometimes he works himself up over even little things, and our parents are worried he might get really stressed out when he meets me and make himself even sicker and-- I don’t want that.” His voice is small now. “So I can wait.”

Ugh. Stupid jerk, making it impossible for Satoru not to like him. He thinks of that day all those years ago, of realizing Takashi was out there somewhere and not even knowing what he looked like. He thinks of Shibata stealing Takashi’s phone to make sure his soulmates were real people, and wonders how much of it was just to be mean and how much of it was some strange, backwards hope.

Satoru reaches across the table, nearly upsetting their cups, and punches Shibata on the arm.

“He won’t be sick forever. I bet he’s probably trying to get better as quick as he can just so he can see your stupid face.”

Shibata blinks at him, and a smile darts across his face, and then he scowls mightily just for show. “I must really look pathetic if _Nishimura_ is giving me advice.”

Atsushi and Takashi roll their eyes in sync, and Shibata’s mother sighs when the inevitable bickering picks up, and Nyanko-sensei pointedly settles in Takashi’s lap like the whole conversation is putting him to sleep, but Satoru thinks they all look kind of happy.

When they’re thirteen, Takashi moves again.

He stayed put for almost three years, the longest he’s ever stayed anywhere since his papa died, and he was happy. But his guardians’ children have outgrown the room they’re sharing, and there’s no space for Takashi in their home anymore.

In the privacy of his own mind, where his brother can’t give him a disappointed look for it, Satoru _hates_ them.

It’s harder for Takashi to leave than it’s ever been; he’s never had a friend to leave behind before. According to Nyanko-sensei later on, Shibata swore up and down that they’d stay best friends no matter where Takashi ended up, and hugged him for so long he almost missed his bus, and made him promise to call his soulmates because he could tell Takashi wasn’t okay.

It’s been so long since Satoru’s had to listen to him crying on the phone that it _hurts,_ this bone-deep _ache_. The afternoon sun was warm on his skin just a moment ago, but now it feels like he’s been plunged into an icy river. Atsushi says, “It’s okay, Okashi. You’ll see him again, I promise. It’s okay.”

 _“I never see anyone again,”_ Takashi sobs. _“Everyone goes away and I never see them again.”_

“You saw us again,” Atsushi counters. His eyes are shiny like he’s about to cry but his voice is as firm as it’s ever been. “You see us all the time. We haven’t gone away, and neither will Shibata. We all love you, and we won’t leave you.”

Kiyoshi isn’t there when Satoru goes home that night. He bursts into the kitchen expecting the noise to be his brother, but it’s mom, home early from her long shift at work. She takes one look at him, eyes all red and puffy, face wet with tears, and puts down whatever she was about to cook for dinner. Later on, he’ll wonder if Auntie called her and told her to come home.

“Come here, baby,” mom says, and he’s all grown up at thirteen years old, but he flies around the table and buries himself in the safety of her arms anyway. She holds him, and only holds him tighter when he starts to cry again.

And even _that_ isn’t fair. Not really. Not when Takashi doesn’t have a mom to hold him when he cries.

But if there’s one thing Takashi is good at, it’s starting over.

 _“There’s a girl in my class,”_ he murmurs over the phone, a week after the move. _“She’s really nice. I flinched at a yokai outside before sensei could scare it away, and my classmates started to whisper, but she came over and sat right beside me. She said if they’re gonna talk about me, they have to talk about her, too.”_

“I like her,” Atsushi says decisively, pouncing on any good news Takashi has to give them. “What’s her name?”

 _“Ogata.”_ Takashi’s voice dips a little into something bashful and pleased. _“But she told me to call her Yuriko.”_

And so the next time they all meet, their group has gotten bigger.

“It’s nice to meet you!” Ogata says brightly, arm-in-arm with another girl their age. “This is Junko, my girlfriend. And we’re soulmates, too, but she would have been my girlfriend anyway.”

Junko shares a commiserating look of exhaustion with Takashi, who returns it simultaneously, and Satoru can’t help but grin. He’s made friends here, Satoru thinks. He’ll be okay, just like Atsushi said.

Nyanko-sensei, in a rare show of affection, hops down from Takashi’s shoulder and circles around to Atsushi instead. He paws at the leg of his pants.

“What? I don’t want to carry you, you’re heavy,” Atsushi says, bewildered. But the lucky cat just starts yowling, and heads up and down the sidewalk start to turn, so Atsushi stoops quickly to pick him up.

“You’re literally the worst cat in the world,” Shibata tells him succinctly. Since the girls are here, and Takashi doesn't know them well enough to trust them with his secret yet, Nyanko-sensei can’t respond with anything more than a narrow-eyed glare. Shibata’s smug smile says he knows this perfectly well.

It’s a fun afternoon. They all exchange contact information, and Ogata says they should start a group chat, and Satoru laughs so hard he has to lean against Junko for support when he sees what she’s called it.

“‘The Natsume Protection Squad’?” Takashi’s face turns bright red. Even his cat is snickering at him. “I don’t like that name. Change it?”

“Nope, it’s perfect,” Shibata says, screenshotting it for posterity. “We’re keeping it like this forever.”

They spend the night at Junko’s house because her family is away. All of them know better than to ask why they can’t sleep over at the place where Takashi’s staying, and they keep him occupied with ordering food and picking out movies to rent. In that silent understanding, their friendship inches toward something unbreakable.

“You’re never really around town much anymore,” Tsuji remarks near the end of the school year. “When we have days off, I mean. You and Kitamoto are always gone.”

“Takashi can’t come visit us right now,” Satoru says, digging his gym clothes out of his bag once the girls have gone to change in another room. “It’s easier for us to go to him.”

“Maybe he should try to go to high school here,” Tsuji says. “I wonder if he’d be able to commute, or if someone around here could sponsor him or something.”

Tugging off his shirt, Satoru’s muffled “maybe” gets lost somewhere around the collar. It’s nice to think about, but he thinks if that were possible then Auntie would have brought it up by now. He may be an idiot, but even he knows better than to get Takashi’s hopes up about something that can't be done.

There’s a loud noise, like a chair clattering to the floor, and by the time he gets his head free of his shirt and glances up, the whole room is staring at him. He stares back, a little self-conscious, and then Atsushi is shoving past the other boys with stark horror in his eyes.

“Satchan,” he says, like it’s all he knows how to say. Satoru follows his stricken gaze to his own stomach.

And he feels like he’s about to be sick.

His whole middle is purple, from the front of his stomach around to the side, a plum color so dark Satoru thinks he could sink his fingers into it like ink. There’s more marks along his chest, down his arms. He lifts a hand, and settles it there against the deepest part of the bruise. Tsuji makes a wounded noise and an aborted gesture, like he wants to stop Satoru from touching it and hurting himself.

“It’s not mine,” Satoru says numbly. He doesn’t recognize his own voice. “Acchan-- “

“Oh, no,” Atsushi whispers, “no, no, please.”

Adachi yells at their classmates for staring, and Tsuji orders someone to go and get the teacher. Everything sounds faraway and underwater, and the room is colder than it should be even when someone settles a jacket around his shoulders. Satoru stares down at his hands, past all the ugly marks and bruises, to the cheerful orange writing that he can barely make out anymore.

_Takashi._


	8. take my heart clean apart

They’re sitting in the health room together, hand in hand. Tsuji and Sasada are with them; Sasada is talking to Atsushi in a soft voice, and Tsuji has an arm wrapped around Satoru like he’d protect him from the whole world if he could.

Their teacher and the principle and the nurse are having a hushed conversation near the door, their tones sharp and frantic, rising angrily and then pitching low again when they remember Satoru and his friends are there.

Atsushi’s hand is shaking in Satoru’s, so Satoru makes sure he’s holding it extra tight.

“Can I use the phone?” he asks. The question cuts through the room as easily as if he shouted it.

“Your parents are on their way,” their teacher reassures him.

“I don’t need to call them,” Satoru says. He wouldn’t recognize his own voice if he weren’t talking with it. Maybe the adults don’t quite recognize it either, because they hesitate to answer him. “I need to call Takashi.”

“That’s probably not-- “ the nurse starts to say.

“I need to call him,” Satoru says again, louder. The room is beginning to look a little blurry. His cheeks are wet and warm. “I need to make sure he’s okay. I won’t know unless I call him. Please let me use the phone, please. I have to talk to him. Please?”

He’s probably scared, Satoru wants to tell them. He’s hurting, he needs us. You don’t understand how much he needs us.

But he can’t tell them, because it’s getting too hard to talk. His breath is hitching, stuttering and catching like he’s run a whole marathon. Atsushi lets go of his hand, and Tsuji’s arm falls away, and for one brief, terrifying moment Satoru has nothing to hold onto--

And then Atsushi is hugging him like he’s the last solid thing in the world, hands clenched in the back of his jacket, face buried against his hair. He’s crying, and he doesn’t say it’s okay because it’s _not,_ but Satoru feels halfway healed already. Halfway less like he’s about to float away.

He hangs on tight, just in case.

Adachi beats their parents by seconds, skidding into the health room with their jackets and bags. He passes the cluster of adults with a nod and doesn’t wait for permission or approval to cross the room and sink into the seat next to Tsuji’s.

“Natsume’s tough,” he says. He looks like he has no idea what to do with himself while his friends are crying. “He’ll get better.”

It’s not fair that he should _have_ to, Satoru thinks. But then mom and Auntie are bursting through the door, faces pale and drawn with fear, and Atsushi cries, _“Mom!”_

There’s some shuffling and murmured voices and the sound of a door whispering closed, and then the room is empty around the four of them. Mom and Auntie are hugging them both with equal desperation like they forgot which kid is theirs, asking rapid-fire questions in such a panicked way that Satoru wonders how much the principal told them when he called.

“Takashi’s hurt,” Satoru says, leaning out of the safe circle of Auntie’s arms. “We have to go find him.”

“He’s _hurt,_ ” Atsushi stresses, eyes red and puffy with tears. “Look.”

He lifts his shirt up, revealing the horrible blue-black mess on the skin of his stomach, and Auntie makes a sound full of pain. Mom’s eyes close for a long moment, like she doesn’t have the strength to keep them open.

“We have to go,” Satoru repeats, fists clenching.

“You’re right,” Auntie says. Her face recycles its sadness into something close to it, but this time it’s something harder, something with teeth. “Aya?”

“You don’t have to ask, Mika,” says mom. She sounds the way she did before the divorce, when she had something to fight for. She leans down to kiss Atsushi on the top of the head, reaches over to curl a hand around Satoru’s cheek-- and _this_ is the woman Kiyoshi tells him about sometimes, the one whose husband thought he’d have a chance in hell at taking her kids away when he left her. “We’re going.”

Things move quickly after that.

Mom goes back home to pack an overnight bag and pick Kiyoshi up from school. Atsushi and Satoru huddle together in the sitting room of the big Kitamoto house with Mana between them, while Uncle Hakaru and Auntie pace the kitchen and make loud phone calls that leak out from behind the closed door.

They’re leaving on the next train, but the next train is in an hour.

“Hey,” Satoru says. His voice sounds sore. “Let’s call his phone.”

Atsushi blinks, eyes blank and wide as he considers the idea. Then he pushes himself to his feet and sneaks out to the genkan where their schoolbags are still puddled on the step. He creeps back with his cellphone in hand and says, “I don’t think he’ll answer. If he had his phone, wouldn’t he have called us?”

There are a lot of reasons why he wouldn’t, but Atsushi knows them as well as Satoru, so he doesn’t waste his breath on those. “Call anyway.”

He hits the speed dial and holds the phone up between them. Satoru counts the rings, thinking it’s going to go all the way through to voicemail, but at the last second the call picks up.

“Okashi?” Atsushi gasps, eyes wide.

 _“Kitamoto!”_ It’s Ogata. She sounds happy to hear from him, and the brightness in her tone pricks like needles under Satoru’s skin. _“Bet you’re surprised I answered, huh? Takashi left his bag with us while he went home to change. He should be back soon, though, he’s been gone for ages.”_

Atsushi looks like he’s going to be sick. This, maybe, wasn’t one of Satoru’s better ideas. He eases the phone out of his soulmate’s white-knuckled grip and says, “Hey, Ogata?”

_“Hi, Nishimura!”_

“You said Takashi went home?”

_“Mm! We’re going to see Natori Shuuichi’s new movie. The one about-- “_

Satoru has no idea how to be the one to tell her Takashi isn’t going to the movies with them. His brain is churning out brand new nightmare fuel, his thoughts spinning in sick circles, because Takashi was okay when he went home, but now he’s _hurt,_ and that could only mean--

_“-- pretty, obviously, but he’s also a super talented actor! I couldn’t believe Takashi said he hadn’t seen any of his films!”_

Atsushi’s face is buried in his hands. Mana pats his arm, clearly worried. “Don’t cry, niichan.”

Satoru has let a lot of tears go, but he hasn’t cried the way Atsushi has. He feels mostly vacant, weightless in a dizzying way, like he’s living in a pocket of vertigo. He should be shouting and screaming, he should be clawing through the phone to the place where Takashi lives, but instead he just sits there, empty and useless and slow on the uptake.

He wonders what’s wrong with him.

“Ogata, Takashi can’t go anymore,” Satoru asks, interrupting her happy chatter. “Something bad happened. I don’t know what yet. Can you keep his stuff safe for us? We’ll meet you for it sometime tonight, after your movie.”

She doesn’t answer right away. When she does, her voice is a lot less buoyant than before, but no less certain. _“Don’t be stupid, Nishimura. We’re not going without him. We haven’t bought our tickets yet, so we’ll just go another time.”_ This is the girl who challenged her whole class for Takashi’s sake, when she had only known him for a handful of days. In the back of his mind, Satoru admires her. _“Can’t we just drop his bag off at his house?”_

“No, don’t-- don’t go there. Promise you won’t.”

 _“You’re scaring me,”_ she admits. Then, farther away, _“Junko, something’s wrong.”_

The front door rattles open, and mother and Kiyoshi’s harried conversation spills into the entry way. Atsushi dashes away his tears and gives Satoru a furtive sidelong look that says _we definitely weren’t supposed to call,_ so he says into the phone, “I have to go, Ogata. We’re taking the next train, so we’ll be there soon. Stay with Junko no matter what. And if you-- if you find him-- “

 _“I’ll call you,”_ Ogata says. She’s definitely upset now. Satoru wishes he hadn’t called. _“And I’m keeping his stuff as collateral until I get the full story. See you soon, you two.”_

Atsushi crams the phone into his pocket as Kiyoshi runs into the room. He bundles Satoru up in a hug that squeezes all the breath out of him. He seems relieved, and murmurs something in Russian that sounds like “spasi bog” and mom doesn’t even give him the usual disapproving look for it.

“You’re okay? The two of you?”

“We will be when we see Takashi,” Atsushi says. He’s moved Mana into his lap so he can scoot closer to Satoru. Their hands drift together involuntarily, and Satoru feels better for having him to hold onto.

The train ride reminds him of the one he took to see his secret soulmate for the first time. He remembers the restless excitement that twisted into nerves, that transformed again into giddy anticipation, and running off the train right into Takashi’s shy smile and hopeful hands.

The only thing that’s the same now as it was then is Atsushi’s hand in his. Auntie, mom and Kiyoshi are sitting on either side of them, and everyone else in the car is giving their group a wide berth, because Auntie sounds like she’s about to breathe fire every time she answers her phone. Kiyoshi is bouncing a knee, uncharacteristically keyed up. Every so often, incomprehensible words will appear on his arm and he’ll scrawl a quick reply.

Satoru looks down at his own arms. The nurse at school bandaged him up, from nearly shoulder to wrist-- _just in case,_ she said with a warm smile. But Satoru thinks it’s partly because he wouldn’t stop staring at them. Only his hands are empty. He stares at them and kind of hates that they’re empty. There’s a marker in his pocket, he could write something to fill the space up.

But he doesn’t know what to say.

The police are waiting for them at Takashi’s house. Apparently there were several reports about a disturbance even before Auntie called them. Takashi’s guardians were taken in for questioning, and they’re being held since they can’t answer any questions about where their foster child is. The house is sitting behind police tape, but the detective's eyes soften at the way Satoru and Atsushi are clustered behind Kiyoshi, and that might be why he lets them go upstairs and get Takashi’s things.

Kiyoshi goes, too, holding them close on either side. When they pass the sitting room, he pushes Atsushi’s face into his shirt and angles himself so Satoru can’t get a glimpse of it either, hustling them along to the stairs.

“Niichan?”

“Don’t worry about it. Which room is Takashi’s?”

They’ve never been here before, but it’s not hard to figure out. There’s a small room with a Western-style bed and a dresser, and Takashi’s cardboard box tucked into the farthest corner. They open it to check that everything’s inside, but the picture frame isn’t there.

“Here,” Atsushi says, drawing it out from where it was hidden underneath the pillow on the bed. He opens it, and both pictures are there beneath cracked glass. Atsushi’s mouth twists, and Kiyoshi reaches over to lift it out of his hands and put it with the rest of the stuff in the box.

Satoru snatches Roar out before he can close it, and tucks the lion into Atsushi’s bag. There’s no Nyanko-sensei to be found, but Satoru wasn’t really expecting him to be hanging around.

Kiyoshi carries the box outside, and he takes them through the kitchen this time, to avoid whatever is in the sitting room that he doesn’t want them to see.

“We didn’t mess anything up,” Satoru informs the detective. The man smiles at him.

“Thank you. Can you tell us about any friends Natsume might have in the area? Is there a place he might have gone?”

Satoru and Atsushi glance at each other. Their decision and agreement come and go in the blink of an eye. Squeezing his hand, Atsushi looks up at the adults and says, “His best friends here are Ogata Yuriko, and Ogata’s soulmate Junko. They were all supposed to go to a movie today, but Takashi never showed up.”

“Ogata Yuriko.” The detective gives one of his people a sharp look and she nods, stepping away to make a phone call. “That’s very helpful. Is there anything else you can think of that we might need to know about?”

“He has a pet cat,” Satoru says. “But we couldn’t find it.”

Just like that, the attention on them draws away and the police start looking for sources of more pertinent information. They’ll probably go straight to Ogata’s house after this. The detective wants mom and Auntie to come to the station to help him make sense of Natsume’s “situation,” since there’s nothing more they can do here.

Satoru tugs on Kiyoshi’s jacket while their parents are distracted. “Can me and Acchan go to the conbini real quick?”

“What? Why?”

“We’re hungry,” Satoru lies. “We didn’t eat lunch.”

Kiyoshi shifts the weight of the box in his arms, looking uncertain. “Let me ask mom, okay?”

But there’s very little their parents wouldn’t agree to right now, and they all look slightly guilty that they forgot to feed the boys in their mad rush to get here. Auntie makes Atsushi prove that his phone battery is most of the way full, and mom has them recite the address of the police station just in case.

Atsushi and Satoru head for the conbini, turn the corner, and break into a run right past it.

This city is bigger than Hitoyoshi, but not by much. They know their way around. Takashi’s favorite place isn’t Ogata’s house, since her mother doesn’t approve of him at all, and it definitely isn’t any of the places popular with his classmates, since they’re all wary of him.

It’s a temple a few blocks away, off a busy street and up a long, long row of concrete steps. There’s a stone guardian that Nyanko-sensei says has an attitude problem, even after Satoru gave it a tennis ball to chew on, and a wooden shinto shrine that Takashi likes to curl up inside of for naps when he can’t sleep at home.

The police can check all the other places, and Atsushi and Satoru will check the most likely one. It’s only fair.

They run up the stairs as quick as they can, legs and lungs burning by the time they reach the top. A steady breeze helps them along, guiding them towards the shrine, and Satoru can already make out the pastel pink of the jacket Mana picked out for Takashi’s birthday last year. His heart leaps into his throat.

“Okashi!” Atsushi sobs out, clambering up the wooden platform. But before they can reach him, something buffets them back. A battering wind that bites at their hair and their clothes, sending dead leaves skittering across the stone, howling like a living creature.

Something invisible sits in their way, curled around Takashi with bared teeth. Satoru clenches his fists.

“You’ll have to be a lot scarier than that, stupid Nyanko!” he shouts above the noise. “If you think we’re just gonna sit here while you hide Takashi away then I’m gonna find a way to seal you into another ugly statue if it’s the last thing I do!”

This time, when he pushes through, the wind parts. He falls forward onto his hands and knees, and Atsushi’s right there beside him. Takashi doesn’t stir, battered face slack and peaceful in what must be a deep sleep.

Atsushi’s shaking so bad it’s a wonder he manages to pick up one of Takashi’s hands, but he does. “He’s okay?”

With a poof, and a bit of smoke that clears away quickly, a familiar fat cat appears. Its eyes are a brighter green than they usually are, and its curled smile looks like it belongs in a book about dangerous predators, but it settles against Satoru’s knee with a huff.

“He’ll be fine. A lesser god owed me a favor and spared his life.”

That’s a statement that Satoru will think about a lot over the years, but for now all that registers is the first part. Satoru has spent all day feeling disjointed and adjacent to himself, a balloon with just his brain inside floating above his body where all his feelings were. But now he’s sinking, now he’s back, now everything is flooding together from where it was stacked safely apart.

 _Now_ he’s crying, really crying, great big gulping sobs. Takashi is here and he’s fine but Satoru is crying like he’ll never be able to stop.

“I forgot how long it takes humans to get from one place to another,” Nyanko-sensei says grudgingly. It’s as close to an apology as they’re likely to get. “It took you this long to show up, I thought you must have had better things to do.”

“You should know better, stupid cat,” Atsushi says without heat. “He’s half of who we are.”

He’s so relieved he can barely sit up straight, listing into Satoru’s side. He has Takashi’s hand pressed to his cheek, and his other arm is wrapped around Satoru’s shoulders. He looks like he’d be happy if he never moved from this spot for the rest of his life.

“He’ll sleep until your doctors can treat him,” Nyanko-sensei says, more patient than usual. “He won’t feel any pain until he wakes up. There are still some broken bones, but nothing he won’t heal from. For a human, he’s strong.”

Satoru has to be the one to make the call, because Atsushi isn’t budging. Their family is frantic and can’t seem to decide whether they deserve scolding or praise so what they get is a mix of both. The paramedics arrive, and check Takashi’s head and spine before lifting him up onto a stretcher. Atsushi and Satoru follow them down the steps and into the ambulance waiting on the street, and if one of the EMTs gives them a lingering look for the fat cat in Satoru’s lap, she doesn’t say anything.

Takashi gets whisked away to the ICU and a few people make valiant attempts to remove Nyanko-sensei from the waiting room, but once Auntie and mom and Kiyoshi and the detective all arrive looking ready to go to war over even the smallest cause, the nurses seem to collectively decide the better part of valor is just leaving the cat alone.

“Frankly, it’s a miracle,” the ER doctor tells the grown-ups in a low voice. Kiyoshi isn’t even pretending not to eavesdrop, so Atsushi and Satoru do, too. “I’ve never seen anything like it. With the number of breaks in his ribs and their placement, we should have seen injuries to surrounding blood vessels and organs, almost certainly a punctured lung. As it is, there’s only soft tissue damage. He won’t even need surgery. But I’ve treated people who’ve come out of _car accidents_ looking better than that child does,” he adds in a hard voice. “If you need a statement from me, a testimony, anything, you’ve got it.”

“Thank you, doctor,” the detective says, clasping his hand. “I’ll hold you to that.”

“When can we see him?” Satoru asks, loud enough to be heard from where he’s sitting across the room, dashing away the polite illusion of their conversation being in any way private. Kiyoshi winces a bit, but Atsushi just leans forward a little to see around him, looking as expectant as Satoru.

The doctor says, “You know what? I’ll make an exception for you two. I’ll take you to him right now.”

They don’t need any more encouragement than that. They jump off their seats and Satoru hefts Nyanko-sensei up a little higher in his arms. The doctor gives the cat a strange look, but Auntie murmurs something about a companion animal, and the doctor’s face clears like that makes perfect sense.  

They follow him through a busy hallway, around a lot of medicine carts and past a lot of rooms, until they come to a door with a placard that says “Natsume Takashi.”

“We moved him from intensive care, but he’s still sleeping,” the doctor says quietly. “He probably won’t wake up tonight, but he’ll hear you if you want to talk to him. Go on in.”

The room is very quiet. A monitor beside the bed is beeping, its screen displaying a jagged line bouncing up and down in neat little peaks. Takashi’s bed is propped up in a broken L, probably to make it easier to breathe. His long hair is brushed back from his face, and there’s a square of gauze over the torn corner of his mouth.

He looks delicate and hardly human. The curve of his cheek beneath Satoru’s fingers is soft.

“Hi, pumpkin,” he whispers. “We came to get you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you know i'll [take my heart clean apart](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrDzd4ufypE)  
> if it helps yours beat


	9. family

The marks and messages a soulmate leaves always fade within a day or two. Mom makes him wait three before Satoru is allowed to pull the bandages off his arms, just in case.

And in that time, Takashi wakes up, he’s cleared to leave the hospital, and they go back home to Hitoyoshi.

The detective pulled a lot of strings, and now Auntie has temporary guardianship of Takashi. It isn’t permanent, but it’s good enough while they figure out the next arrangement.

She made it pretty clear she wasn’t leaving the city without him. The detective looked one part cowed and two parts impressed, and in the end he was happy to arrange a rental van for them, so they wouldn’t have to take Takashi onto a crowded train.

The doctor said to allow at least six weeks for Takashi’s ribs to heal, and to take him to a clinic immediately if he has trouble breathing because that would increase the risk of pneumonia. Mostly he has to stay propped up in Atsushi’s bed with hot tea or soup on hand at all times, but that’s okay.

As much fun as it is to run through the lavender fields, and go fishing in the river, and climb the steps in the woods to visit Takashi’s favorite shrine, Satoru likes having Takashi right here where they can keep an eye on him all the time. He gets nervous when Takashi is gone.

The worst part is that his soulmates can’t crawl into bed with him at night, because they might roll over on him or something and he’s still so sore. It’s weird to sleep with him three feet away. Satoru is used to being miles and miles apart, or not apart at all.

Tsuji and Adachi come by with their classwork, the way they’ve done every day for the past week. Tsuji is determined not to let them fall behind, and Adachi likes the easy excuse to visit Takashi.

Shibata’s school had a teacher institute right before the weekend, so he’s here for three days and can hardly be pried from his best friend’s side long enough to take a bath or go to sleep. His eyes are red-rimmed from crying and he doesn’t look even a little bit self-conscious about it, clutching Takashi’s hand like he could make up for not being there when he was really needed if he holds on tight enough now.

Takashi, for his part, naps most of the time. Nyanko-sensei is his silent sentry, eating far less than a real cat would and watching everything with his dark intelligent eyes. The therapist who comes to talk to them every now and then said she was surprised the cat wasn’t certified already, and helped Auntie get the paperwork filed. Satoru didn’t understand all of it, but basically Nyanko-sensei will be allowed to go wherever Takashi does, no matter what his next guardians will have to say about it. _That’s_ a relief, even if nothing else about the uncertainty of Takashi’s future is.

“Hey,” Satoru says. “You have a house, don’t you?”

It’s Sunday night, and he has to go back to school tomorrow while Takashi stays home without him. It’s hard to fall asleep, knowing that. It’s hard to fall asleep for lots of reasons these days, and he’d rather be up late thinking about stuff than up late because a bad dream chased him awake.

He can almost hear Takashi’s surprised blink. In the futon next to Satoru’s, Atsushi shifts closer to wakefulness than sleep.

Takashi asks, “My parent’s house?”

“That one,” Satoru says. It’s very dark and his quiet voice cuts through the still room easily. “You know where it is?”

“I have directions written down. I keep them in my book. Why?”

“Because when I kidnap you, it would be a good place to go.” Satoru smiles at the noise of disbelief Atsushi makes, and tilts his head over to look up at Takashi, peering down at him with wide eyes over the side of the bed. “The three of us could stay there together forever and I’d never have to say goodbye to you again.”

Takashi doesn’t answer for a long time, but Satoru is used to his silences. He lets his eyes drift away, following the slant of moonlight spilling into the room from a crack in the shutters, but then Atsushi says, “Okashi, what are you doing? Hey, don’t get up-- “ and it snaps his attention back.

Takashi’s still moving, tugging back his blanket with deliberate, ginger slowness, like every move makes him ache. Nyanko-sensei grumbles in the back of his throat, displeased, as Takashi swings one leg over the side of the bed, and then the other. There’s a stubborn set to his mouth, even as his soulmates scramble to their feet and rush to him.

“Quit it, Bakashi,” Satoru snaps, pressing Takashi down by the shoulders. “If you have to go to the bathroom or something you’re supposed to let us know before you-- “

But then Takashi’s bruised hands are folding in the front of Satoru’s shirt, slowly and surely. It’s not so sudden as to be startling, the careful way he pulls Satoru down. Satoru doesn’t even realize what’s happening, keeps right on talking, up until the exact moment Takashi kisses him.

It’s just a brief press of their lips together, a touch as soft as a flower petal feels. It has absolutely no business making Satoru feel as dizzy as it does. He stands there stupidly when Takashi reaches for Atsushi in turn, and Atsushi is grinning almost too wide to kiss properly, a grin that very clearly is making fun of Satoru’s expression. Even Takashi looks like he’s about to laugh.

“I forgot to tell you,” their soulmate says, so sweetly. “Thank you.”

“You don’t have to say thank you,” Atsushi says, sitting on the bed beside him. His arm snakes around Takashi’s waist, and Satoru’s heart aches with joy when the two of them are together. “Nice kiss, though.”

Takashi turns faintly pink, like he’s just caught up to himself. “You kissed me first.”

“That was years ago! And it was a kiss on the _cheek.”_

“Hey, I’m not complaining. I’m the opposite of complaining.” Satoru has finally found his voice again and he crowds in closer, all but crawling onto Takashi’s lap, even though it makes Atsushi give him a pointed look to be careful. So Satoru minds his sore chest, even as he tugs Takashi’s hands down from where they’re hiding his face. “ _Pumpkin_. I want one more.”

Of course, he’s not actually satisfied with _one._ And he has to kiss Atsushi, too, because he can’t live in a world where someone else has kissed Acchan and _he_ hasn’t. And they’re awake a lot, lot longer than they should be, totally preoccupied with this newfound way to express all their impossible affection, so happy that sleep is far away.

Morning comes obscenely early and it feels like they only slept for about five minutes each. Takashi is sleeping peacefully when Atsushi and Satoru drag themselves around getting ready for school. Auntie gives them knowing looks over breakfast table in the morning, but mercifully doesn’t comment.

Their classmates are relieved to see them, but Sasada and Tsuji must have passed around pretty convincing threats beforehand, because Satoru and Atsushi aren’t mobbed on their way inside. Taki pulls them aside for a tight hug, squeezing the life out of both of them in turn, and a few other kids get away with murmured condolences and welcomes, but otherwise it’s easy to slip back into routine.

Satoru folds his hands together and watches the clock. His sleeves are rolled up so he’ll see a note the second Takashi leaves one, and his phone is on vibrate in his pocket. At his desk on the other side of the room, Atsushi is equally as tense.

Nyanko-sensei is home with Takashi, and no one in this entire town means him any harm, but Satoru has nightmares about what happened the last time they left him alone. It’s stupid, even though the therapist says it’s _not_ stupid. She says it will take a lot of time to stop being scared.

Color appears from the corner of his eye. Satoru glances down at his hands in time to watch familiar handwriting fill the empty space, those neatly drawn characters that Satoru would be able to pick out of a thousand, a shade of orange that makes his heart beat a little faster.

 _You didn’t wake me up before you left, so I didn’t get to tell you,_ Takashi writes. _Have a good day!_

And just a tiny little bit of that senseless fear goes away. With every new day, it goes away a bit more. 

Ogata sneaks away from home to visit on the weekends, even though it gets her in trouble with her mom more than once. Shibata gets on the train to Hitoyoshi on any afternoon he doesn't have extra-curriculars, and on some afternoons that he does, and stubbornly weathers phone calls from his exasperated parents who say things like "just _tell us_ when you're going so we don't have to find out from your teacher" followed by "and give Takashi our love" which takes any sting out of the scolding.

Takashi has had years to get used to his friends and how much they love him, but he still brightens when Ogata or Shibata texts to say they're coming over.

“Are you guys gonna be around after school?” Suzuki asks about a month later, while Satoru is snatching up his books and his bag. “There’s a new game at the arcade you should check out.”

“Next time, maybe,” Atsushi says, slinging his own bag over his shoulder. “Takashi has a doctor’s appointment this afternoon.”

“Hey, no worries,” Suzuki says with a wave, probably sensing the dark stare Tsuji is directing at the back of his head. “Bring him along when he’s feeling better.”

Takashi has been feeling a lot better recently, but it'll still be a few weeks before he's allowed to do more than walk around the house. Today they're taking him to the general hospital for x-rays, to make sure his ribs are healing like they should. Nyanko-sensei comes along, riding on Atsushi's shoulder since Takashi can't carry him yet, and Satoru holds Takashi's hand because the hospital gives him an uneasy feeling.   
  
The doctor is very nice, and tells Takashi he's doing well. There's a rattle in his lungs she doesn't like, so he gets a prescription for antibiotics just in case, but otherwise his progress is right where it should be. In another month, he should be good as new. 

"Well, since we have to go out and fill Takashi's prescription, I don't see why we shouldn't stop and get donuts on our way home," Auntie says brightly, leading the way out. "We'll get one for Mana, too. Don't tell dad."

"Thanks, Aunt Mikako," Takashi says, smiling up at her. "For everything. Sorry I've been so much trouble."

"Natsume Takashi, if you say 'sorry' one more time, I'm gonna lose it," Satoru informs him with a scowl. "This is what family is  _supposed_ to do. Get it through your head already."

But he squeezes his hand so Takashi doesn't feel truly scolded, and Atsushi rolls his eyes at either what Satoru said or the way he immediately backtracked. Auntie looks amused by the three of them and starts to open the door to the lobby, when a sudden voice calls out, "Excuse me!"

Satoru turns, surprised. He recognizes the woman who hurries across the hall to them. She lives in the big house on the very edge of town, and the one time Satoru accidentally kicked a ball into her yard, she sent him on his way with a snack. She presses a flustered hand to her mouth when she reaches them, and beside her, the man that must be her husband smiles at them pleasantly.

"I'm so sorry for butting in," she says. "We're here to visit a friend, and we happened to overhear. Natsume?"

"It's no trouble," Auntie assures her. She puts a hand on Takashi's shoulder. "I don't think you've had the chance to meet my son's second soulmate. This is Natsume Takashi, and he's staying with us for a little while."

Takashi ducks in a quick bow. The woman claps her hands together, looking delighted. "Is that so? Shigeru-san, you were right!"

Her husband laughs, a kind sound. "It's nice to meet you, Takashi. I've heard your name before from a cousin of mine." When Shigeru smiles, the lines on his face fit it perfectly, worn into place from a long life of smiling. "I'm Fujiwara Shigeru, and this is my wife, Touko-san. As it so happens, you and I are family."


	10. 3 years later

“You’re literally my favorite person in the entire world, Takashi,” Ogata says with feeling, clutching both of his hands in both of hers. There are stars in her eyes. Behind her, Junko looks longsuffering and unsurprised. “I can’t believe how much I love you.”

Takashi laughs, swinging their joined hands back and forth. There’s sunlight in his hair, spinning the color into something close to gold, but it’s no match for the brightness of his smile when he tells her, “I owed you one, didn’t I? You missed a movie because of me, once. Hopefully this makes up for it.”

“Takashi's unreal,” Shibata mutters. “He’s bringing Natori Shuuichi to meet Yuriko personally, _at his house,_ and he’s acting like he’s just giving her a free movie ticket or something.”

Satoru grins at him. “And you came over a whole weekend early when you heard he’d be here. Hiding a secret crush I should know about?”

His friend gives him a glare that could have withered fresh flowers. “I’m only here because I knew everyone else would be, and Kaname doesn’t do well in a crowd. As soon as he needs an excuse to bail, I’m staging a very elaborate emergency phone call and we’re out of here.”

Shibata goes through a lot of lengths to be sweet to his soulmate without coming across as sweet. Satoru would be impressed if it wasn’t so annoying.

The big sitting room is packed, porch doors slid open to let in sunlight and the occasional squawk of a nosy neighborhood crow, but there’s always room for one more; proven when the front door slams open and Taki calls out in a harried voice, “Forgive the intrusion! _Natsume--_ !”

“Oh, god,” Atsushi says dryly, palming his forehead. “I know that tone.”

Takashi scoots around Ogata and Satoru in time to meet Taki in the doorway. She looks flushed and teary with frustration. She seizes his hands when he offers them and wails, “I got cursed again.”

“There it is,” Atsushi mutters.

“Oh, my,” Natsume’s foster father says, looking a mix between concerned and amused. “I thought you promised to stay out of your grandfather’s study unless your brother was home to supervise.”

“Isamu _is_ home, that’s the problem. He still doesn’t believe in this stuff and he’s always goading me into doing something stupid, and I get so frustrated I take the bait!” Taki works her sleeve back to show Natsume her bare forearm. He sucks in a hissing breath through his teeth, though, so there must be a spirit mark there somewhere. “Nyanko-sensei, you ought to curse him for me as payback.”

“I will consider it,” the cat says immediately, blinking lazily from his patch of sunlight. Tanuma pets between his ears, and his next blink is even lazier. “If you bring me a piece of chocolate cake.”

“No cursing,” Takashi says quickly, darting a quick glance at Shigeru. “And Hinoe will be able to fix this for you, Taki, it’s pretty weak.”

Taki brightens, looking relieved, and Shigeru folds his newspaper with a chuckle. He’s had several years to get used to their odd brand of shenanigans, and he’s met most of Takashi’s ayakashi friends thanks to one of Taki’s circles. He always seems to know when he should get involved and when it’s something he can leave in Takashi’s hands.

“I can hardly remember the last time we had a dull afternoon around here,” Shigeru says warmly, and tousles Takashi’s hair on his way out of the room. “Thanks for making this old house feel lively again.

Something very important in Satoru’s chest melts into absolute goop at the look on Takashi’s face. Sometimes he still looks like that when someone’s nice to him, like it’s a gift he has no idea how to repay. Then Atsushi calls his name, beckoning him over to where Nyanko-sensei is trying to eat an entire tray full of their snacks, and the fragile moment is broken.

Satoru ends up next to Tanuma, the two of them watching their soulmates chase a fat lucky cat around the room. Tanuma’s smile is a soft, crooked thing, like a slant of sunlight pouring through a crack in the curtains. Satoru nudges their shoulders together.

“Alright?” he asks.

“I’m fine,” Tanuma says. He’s hugging his legs to his chest, chin propped up on his knees. For such a tall guy, he tends not to take up very much space. “I know Katsumi worries, but I really am fine. I just don’t always know how to-- you know. How to jump in.”

Satoru _doesn’t_ know, not really. He’s always known how to jump in. If he didn’t, he doesn’t know where he’d be-- but he doesn’t think he’d be here, in this sunny room, surrounded by the people he loves best.

The front door opens again, and this time a familiar voice says, “I’m home!”

Takashi abandons the hunt for Nyanko-sensei like a flip was switched and makes a beeline for the entryway, calling out, “Welcome back! Oh-- you got a lot of stuff, you should have told me you’d need help-- “

“Nonsense,” Touko says brightly, stepping into the hall. “You should spend time with your friends when they come so far to see you!” She sets a grocery bag down and touches Takashi’s face, a gentle press of her fingers to his cheek, and her smile is as loving as it was the day she brought him home. “Besides! Kai was all the help I needed.”

A walking pile of vegetables turns out to be Takashi’s little brother, staggering into the house under his own weight in cabbage, and he wails, “Takashi, help me.”

Takashi and Shigeru both laughingly come to his aid while Touko tut-tuts about Kai trying to carry too much in from the car at once. Satoru leans back on his hands to watch the scene fondly.

Shibata and Atsushi have finally managed to corner Nyanko-sensei and repossess the stolen dango. Atsushi hauls the cat over to the Fujiwaras to make him pay for his crimes while Shibata makes a show of flopping over on his back in exhaustion. Tanuma is watching him with wanting eyes, so Satoru digs out his favorite felt-tip pen.

“Lemme show you a secret,” Satoru tells him conspiratorially, putting the tip of the pen to the palm of his hand. He draws a symbol there, and holds it out so Tanuma can see.

Across the room, his soulmates notice their messages at once. They glance up and their eyes find his unerringly, knowing and loving and familiar, and it fills his whole body with warmth.

“Circles are hugs,” Satoru explains, grinning like stupid. “Takashi taught me that a long time ago.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and that's a wrap ! thank you all so much for coming on this little journey with me !


End file.
